Quantum Medievalisms (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies
Organizer Name
Eileen Joy
Organizer Affiliation
BABEL Working Group
Presider Name
Angela R. Bennett Segler
Presider Affiliation
New York Univ.
Paper Title 1
Schroedinger's Woman
Presenter 1 Name
Tara Mendola
Presenter 1 Affiliation
New York Univ.
Paper Title 2
The Piers Plowman Uncertainty Principle
Presenter 2 Name
James Eric Ensley
Presenter 2 Affiliation
North Carolina State Univ.
Paper Title 3
Bedetimematter
Presenter 3 Name
Christopher Roman
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Kent State Univ.-Tuscarawas
Paper Title 4
Quantum Memory and Medieval Poetics of Forgetting
Presenter 4 Name
Jenny Boyar
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Univ. of Rochester
Paper Title 5
Quantum Queerness
Presenter 5 Name
Karma Lochrie
Presenter 5 Affiliation
Indiana Univ.-Bloomington
Start Date
15-5-2015 10:00 AM
Session Location
Bernhard 158
Description
This panel uses a direct parallel with Quantum Physics to prompt interrogations of basic structures of figuring matter and temporality within scholarship of the Middle Ages. As the name suggests, the idea has a dual legacy. In classical Latin, “quantum” is the accusative form of the adjective “quantus,” usually paired with “tantus” to indicate questions of what size, how much, or magnitude of greatness. In its adverbial counterpart, “quantum” designated a comparison of quantity: “as far as,” “as much as,” “as great as.” Even from the Patristic writers, though, we find that “quantum” has become a noun that is no longer a comparison or a description of quantities, but a stand-in for quantity itself. In contemporary culture, the word “quantum,” carries with it the connotations of modern physics that, beginning with Einstein and Planck, define basic units of light and energy (respectively) as “quanta.” Quantum physics deals primarily with the level of the atomic and subatomic nature of all matter, at which levels the classical distinctions between matter and energy, wave and particle collapse completely. All things—light, energy and matter—are simultaneously waves and particles, and due to Bohr’s principle of complementarity it is the observer who intervenes via her scientific apparatus and determines what she is observing. One of the ramifications of Bohr’s interpretation is the idea of quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement means that all elements of a system are simultaneously affected as the system is affected. As those elements disperse—an inevitability according to the laws of thermodynamics—the system itself does not disassemble but becomes diffuse. Action upon the system will still simultaneously affect every iota of the system, even if those elements are light years apart.
This panel will comprise papers that not only consider the quantum nature of medieval philosophy and natural philosophy (science), but also the ways in which the implications of quantum physics may necessitate a re-reading of the temporality of the Middle Ages themselves. If time is relative, action at a distance (spatial or temporal) is simultaneous, and all possibilities occur simultaneously, how does that affect the way we read our own constitution of medieval phenomena? If we reject classical causality, what do the terms “premodern,” “modern,” “postmodern,” and Latour’s “nonmodern” even mean? In what ways are we entangled with the Middle Ages, physically and philosophically? Ultimately, the discussants will raise questions about our relationship to the past, to history, and to tradition based upon our understanding of the most fundamental units of matter, and the panel also serves as a prelude to a special issue of postmedieval on "quantum medievalisms" to be published in 2017.
Eileen A. Joy
Quantum Medievalisms (A Roundtable)
Bernhard 158
This panel uses a direct parallel with Quantum Physics to prompt interrogations of basic structures of figuring matter and temporality within scholarship of the Middle Ages. As the name suggests, the idea has a dual legacy. In classical Latin, “quantum” is the accusative form of the adjective “quantus,” usually paired with “tantus” to indicate questions of what size, how much, or magnitude of greatness. In its adverbial counterpart, “quantum” designated a comparison of quantity: “as far as,” “as much as,” “as great as.” Even from the Patristic writers, though, we find that “quantum” has become a noun that is no longer a comparison or a description of quantities, but a stand-in for quantity itself. In contemporary culture, the word “quantum,” carries with it the connotations of modern physics that, beginning with Einstein and Planck, define basic units of light and energy (respectively) as “quanta.” Quantum physics deals primarily with the level of the atomic and subatomic nature of all matter, at which levels the classical distinctions between matter and energy, wave and particle collapse completely. All things—light, energy and matter—are simultaneously waves and particles, and due to Bohr’s principle of complementarity it is the observer who intervenes via her scientific apparatus and determines what she is observing. One of the ramifications of Bohr’s interpretation is the idea of quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement means that all elements of a system are simultaneously affected as the system is affected. As those elements disperse—an inevitability according to the laws of thermodynamics—the system itself does not disassemble but becomes diffuse. Action upon the system will still simultaneously affect every iota of the system, even if those elements are light years apart.
This panel will comprise papers that not only consider the quantum nature of medieval philosophy and natural philosophy (science), but also the ways in which the implications of quantum physics may necessitate a re-reading of the temporality of the Middle Ages themselves. If time is relative, action at a distance (spatial or temporal) is simultaneous, and all possibilities occur simultaneously, how does that affect the way we read our own constitution of medieval phenomena? If we reject classical causality, what do the terms “premodern,” “modern,” “postmodern,” and Latour’s “nonmodern” even mean? In what ways are we entangled with the Middle Ages, physically and philosophically? Ultimately, the discussants will raise questions about our relationship to the past, to history, and to tradition based upon our understanding of the most fundamental units of matter, and the panel also serves as a prelude to a special issue of postmedieval on "quantum medievalisms" to be published in 2017.
Eileen A. Joy